Captain Cajun's Ferryboat
Captain Cajun's Ferryboat is the first puzzle in the Who's Bayou region of Logical Journey of the Zoombinis. Premise Captain Cajun (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui) owns a ferryboat and gets his pay by taking anybody across the wide river that he lives by. Your Zoombinis need the help of Captain Cajun to cross a river and proceed on their way. Cajun's ferryboat has exactly enough spaces for all of your 16 Zoombinis. Although the captain insistently tells you that he does not care where you sit, he is very picky about seating and if two Zoombinis sit next to each other that share no traits (eyes, hair, nose or feet), he will become very angry and eject the offending Zoombini from his raft and in the water, and makes a comment. If a zoombini makes an attempt to sit in a seat that is already occupied by another zoombini, then Cajun will get angry at that as well and send him back to where the rest of the zoombinis are. As the difficulty level increases, the configuration of the seats changes so that your Zoombinis are adjacent to more of their peers. Nobody knows why he does that; maybe it could be a big joke being played by him. In-game Help Text Not so easy Seating on Captain Cajun's ferryboat is very important. Zoombinis can only sit next to each other if they have at least one matching feature (same hair, eyes, nose color, or feet). Oh, so hard Seating on Captain Cajun's ferryboat is very important. Zoombinis can only sit next to each other if they have at least one matching feature (same hair, eyes, nose color, or feet). Now there are more links between seats for a greater challenge. Very hard Seating on Captain Cajun's ferryboat is very important. Zoombinis can only sit next to each other if they have at least one matching feature (same hair, eyes, nose color, or feet). Now there are more links between seats for a greater challenge. Very, very hard Seating on Captain Cajun's ferryboat is very important. Zoombinis can only sit next to each other if they have at least one matching feature (same hair, eyes, nose color, or feet). Now there are more links between seats for a greater challenge. Detailed Mechanics and Rules Mathematics Captain Cajun's Ferryboat is truly a graph theory problem in disguise. Let G be the graph whose nodes are the Zoombinis of the party with an edge between two Zoombinis if they share a trait. Let H be the graph of Captain Cajun's seating arrangement, where the nodes are the seats and an edge is between adjacent seats. In order to get all Zoombinis through, you must find an embedding of H into G. It is possible there is no embedding, that is, H is not a subgraph of G, in which case some Zoombinis will be left behind. It may be helpful to organize the Zoombinis by clique in G, that is, find the largest groups of Zoombinis that all share one trait, and hope that these groups overlap in some reasonable amount. Strategy for Solving the Puzzle There is really not much more to be said in the way of how to solve this one... It is possible that certain combinations can be made that are not solvable, and to my knowledge Cajun never gets so angry that he leaves without the rest of your troop. The Zoombinis must have something in common with the Zoombinis next to whom they sit. This Puzzle can also be solved easily by making sure that all of the 16 Zoombinis that leave Zoombini Isle have the same characteristic (eg all have a blue nose) to guarantee success. Category:Puzzles